Hisao Toake

An elderly couple journey to Tokyo to visit their children and are confronted by indifference, ingratitude and selfishness... (imdb)

In 17th century Kyoto, Osan is married to Ishun, a wealthy miserly scroll-maker. When Osan is falsely accused of having an affair with the best worker... (imdb)

This film is about the story of the relationship between a daughter-in-law (Setsuko Hara) and the father (So Yamamura) of her neglectful and selfish husband (Ken Uehara). As the father becomes more and more aware of the unhappiness of Hara, he takes ever more unconventional steps to try to rescue his son's marriage. Though the issues of infidelity, abortion and divorce swirl through this film, the tone is remarkably low-key and unmelodramatic (IMDB Comments)

Takeo, a capricious wife from Tokyo high-society, is bored by her dull husband, a quiet and reliable company executive raised in the country (Shin Saburi) After a crisis, she understands better his true value. A parallel sub-plot shows her niece rebelling against the tradition of arranged marriages. (imdb)

After an attempted suicide attempt, Yukiko (Kuga) spends some time recovering at Kyoto with her mother, Hatsuko (Tanaka). However, their familial home is in fact a geisha house, and Hatsuko is the strong-willed Madame of this institute. Through this mother-daughter relationship, and the romantic entanglements that arise when both find themselves in love with Dr. Matoba (Otani), Mizoguchi explores generational conflicts and social mores whilst paying an effective tribute to the resilience of femininity in contemporary Japan.

A 19 year old girl loses her husband in war. Bombing destroys his family's shop and the widow stays to rebuild it as the rest of the family flee and runs it for 18 years out of love for her dead husband and his mother. After 18 years when a new supermarket threatens to put them out of business, the sisters conspire to turn the shop into a supermarket and get rid of their brother's widow. (imdb)

Scattered Clouds, director Mikio Naruse's final film, plays like the melancholy last dance of an extended evening of revelry now teetering on the fine line separating drunkenness and sobriety. It's the cinematic equivalent of a hangover, though the heady haze the film conveys is part of its charm and very much in tune with its deeply saturated color photography, which constantly threatens to spill over its borders and run together in a kind of chaotic emotional release. (KG)

Keijiro and Ayako Kono (Masayuki Mori and Chikage Awashima) seem like a picture-book upper middle-class family. He is a respected professor and the couple has two amiable children (a high school-aged girl and middle school-aged boy). But the Kono's domestic siutuation is more complicated than it seems on the surface. The children are actually the illegitimate children of Kono's long-time mistress, Miho. To compensate for giving up the children, the Konos subsidize a bar which Miho operates. (imdb)

Teiko, a young newlywed, bids farewell to her new husband, Kenichi, in a Tokyo station, as he leaves to conclude business in Kanazawa, promising to return on December 12. But the 12th comes and goes with no word from Kenichi. Teiko's only clue to her husband's whereabouts is a couple of strange postcards she finds among his belongings. When Kenichi's employers invite her to Kanazawa to help them locate him, Teiko finds herself embroiled in a complicated mystery. (sansebastianfestival.com)

A satirical comedy about a store clerk who falls in love with his boss's daughter. Mizoguchi Kenji's final project; he died before completing it and directing duties turned over to Yoshimura Kozaburo. (The Movie Database)

In this one Hibari Misora plays a modern day geisha who has a reputation among the clientele for not liking men very much and refusing to provide any of the "extras" they so want to get from the women in this profession. The viewer is introduced to the character when she stops three bullies from harassing a woman by smacking them and declaring to them "I am Koharu from Yanagibashi. Don't take me lightly". (imdb)

The woman-only prison has a cast all with a story of their own and with no dull or routine day. There is an employee who is divorced after her husband had an affair. She loves the jailed criminals and almost sees them as family. One day at a workshop someone faints while working hard to make money because she has a poor boyfriend. Another inmate is knocked up Another is a mother and has her child with her. (imdb)